


Conversations at the Dinner Table

by lucdarling



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Confrontations, F/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Secrets, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 08:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling
Summary: Alice Cooper is ready for the next dinner with her daughter's boyfriend, armed and waiting with a folder.Jughead's secrets come to the light.





	Conversations at the Dinner Table

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [a prompt](http://riverdale-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1356.html?thread=310348#cmt310348) at the Riverdale_kinkmeme.  
> Contains alluded/past rape of a minor.
> 
> All mistakes, grammar and otherwise, are my own.

The words are quietly spoken but they echo in Jughead's head like a gunshot. Alice Cooper has her hands neatly folded together on the dining table across from him. Betty is washing plates from dinner and preparing coffee in the next room and has no idea her mother has confronted Jughead with the truth of his past, the best thing that's happened in his life so far, armed with a sparkling smile.

"Funny, I thought medical records of juveniles were sealed against the public," he shoots back. It's not a denial and they both know it.

Alice continues probing, voice oddly gentle and barely louder than the heartbeat rushing in his ears. "Honey, I knew your father. He's gruff and he sticks out like a sore thumb on this side of Riverdale but by god, does he try for those he loves. He loves you, no matter what. You were so young." Jughead ducks his head against the sting of water in his eyes, this woman with her middle-class home and gorgeous daughters has no idea how much his dad has done for Jughead. FP was the one to buy him his first flannel, taught him to shave on a sober day in a string of bad ones and stood firmly behind Jughead when he came home from juvie.

"Yeah, I know. He's a lot better than this town thinks." Jughead says quietly. He dashes the back of his hand against his eyes as Alice stands from the table in an excuse so she doesn't have to watch his tears.

"She's yours, isn't she?" They don't need to say her name but it sits heavy between them, heavier on the tip of Jughead's tongue. He swallows it back down and pretends it doesn't hurt.

Jughead nods instead, eyes watching warily as Alice crosses the room to the china cabinet against the wall and opens a drawer. She takes out a plain manila folder, ordinary in its appearance and gives it to Jughead with a sad smile.

"There's nothing I wouldn't do for my daughters, Mr. Jones. That includes looking into their pasts, especially one from the South Side. I did this for you, though. You haven't been to visit since they moved away." She doesn't put any unnecessary emphasis on the title and he's grateful. He hasn't yet had time to sit Betty down and tell her about the nearly invisible scars on his chest, the sex organ between his legs and the baby he had months after he got out of juvie for an arson conviction.

"Betty doesn't know," Jughead whispers and his voice cracks.

Alice shakes her head, tucking a lock of wayward blonde hair out of her face. "I won't tell her, Mr. Jones. That's your conversation to have, should you want. You're both in high school, you think you'll be in love forever." She sighs and grows quiet.

He taps the edge of the folder on the table to change the subject without saying anything. Jughead still hasn't opened it yet, though he has a good idea of what's inside. He doesn't want to look under the bright lights of the Cooper's dining table, not with Betty finishing up the dishes and pouring coffee with no idea. She believes the lie his mother circulated as soon as his placenta passed, about his little _sister._

"These were taken last month," Alice points a manicured fingernail at what he holds. "She and your mother are still in Toledo. She's beautiful, dark hair just like yours. I'm surprised you haven't been to see them, even the bus can't be prohibitively expensive."

Jughead shrugs and his free hand tightens on the table. "My mother would rather see me with longer hair and a dress," he admits. "Getting out of juvie with her alongside wasn't part of her plan. She stuck around long enough for her to be weaned off and left in the night. I got a postcard with a phone number. We still talk on the phone sometimes, but it's rare."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Everyone in South Side has a plan for their life, even if it rarely works out that way," Alice notes wryly. Jughead snorts.

"Yours succeeded, it looks like. You have the house and the kids, you're just missing a dog." Everyone around where Jughead grew up has the same dream: an actual house in Riverdale, kids in the affluent school district and probably a pet. He also knows not many cross that invisible divide between.

"Newly divorced mother to two teenage daughters, one a new mother herself. I'm really killing it by the town's standards." Jughead laughs despite himself at her biting sarcasm and Alice joins in after a very brief pause.

It's how Betty finds them, laughing like old friends at the dining table. The manila folder gets slyly tucked away in Jughead's satchel as she sets the tray of coffee mugs down.

"Everything okay, Mom?" Betty looks somewhat nervously between her mother and her boyfriend like she can't believe what she's seeing.

"We're just fine, sweetheart," Alice says with a bright smile. "It turns out Jughead and I have more in common than I previously thought." Betty nods slowly and sits down next to him, already reaching out with one hand before she's fully seated. Jughead takes it like a lifeline, gripping a little too hard. His world's been shoved off-kilter tonight, by just a conversation. He needs a sense of normalcy as he sips his black coffee across the table from the woman who is the only person in the entire town who knows the truth about that terrible year who doesn't have the last name Jones.

Alice hugs him for the first time ever on his way back to his foster family's home on the other side of town where Riverdale meets the South Side. "If you want to see her, you let me know, Jughead. It's only a six hour drive. No parent should have to be separate from their child when they know where they are in the world."

"I'll think about it," Jughead promises and then Betty tugs him out the door into the night. He thinks about Mrs. Cooper's offer as he holds Betty's hand and they shamble towards Pop's diner for lack of anywhere else to go. Betty seems to understand his need for silence and doesn't say a word next to him.

 _Out of sight, out of mind_ hadn't worked too well for the Coopers, being that Polly and her child were living in her childhood bedroom but there had been something in Alice's expression when they talked however briefly of lost loves and life plans going awry. Jughead thinks he has the shape of the skeleton in Alice's closet and it looks an awful lot like a third child.

(He opens the folder in his new bedroom, clean sheets and a big bed that would fit three of him. It's a far cry from the trailer he called home or the army cot at the Twilight and then the school. He muffles his sobs with his beanie folded against his mouth, the same hat that Jellybean's fist curled into the first time he held her in his arms. She's so big now, wearing a bright smile and dark pigtails as she greets a dog that's nearly as big as she is. Jughead cries himself to sleep once he's finally managed to close the folder, just like he did the first night he realized she was gone and never coming back to him.)


End file.
